Educator Created

Smarter Balanced was developed by teachers for students. More than 4,700 educators contributed to the creation of the Smarter Balanced system. Teachers contributed at each step of the development of Smarter Balanced, from helping to write the actual test questions, to creating and vetting the tools in its Digital Library, to deciding the appropriate achievement levels to show a student has met the standards.

Number of educators who helped create Smarter Balanced.

My involvement in this process removes the myth that we are “teaching to the test.” We are in reality “testing to the teaching.”Shannon Callahan, Math Teacher, Helena, MT

Best of the Best

Educators looked at the best existing tests, as well as emerging, innovative testing practices in order to create Smarter Balanced assessments. Taking from the “best of the best” assessments, Smarter Balanced asks students to complete performance tasks to show how they can solve problems, not just get the right answer. The assessments are computer adaptive, online, and easy to navigate.

To assist states in supporting their at-risk students, the assessments include Braille, video accommodations for American Sign Language, and embedded supports such as glossaries translated into 10 languages and several dialects, as well as translated test directions in 19 languages. The math assessment has been fully translated into Spanish. Every test question is reviewed for bias and sensitivity.